The latest from WDM

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News

Donations to crisis appeals buy half as much food as in 2001

28 July 2011

The World Development Movement has called for urgent measures to regulate financial speculation on food prices in the wake of the Horn of Africa famine, revealing that the price of food aid has doubled since 2001.

The World Food Programme paid $390 per tonne of food last year, compared with $200 in 2001. On Monday the organisation said it needed an extra $360 million in order to tackle the crisis now affecting more than 12 million people.

Developing country groups slam UK’s climate loans

27 June 2011

Groups from 13 developing countries have today slammed UK climate loans, set to be agreed in South Africa this week. The loans are to be given through the World Bank.

Community leaders in countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Mozambique and Yemen have written to British cabinet ministers Chris Huhne and Andrew Mitchell rejecting the loans the UK is providing to their countries to help them cope with climate change.

G20 fails to tackle food price speculation

23 June 2011

An action plan supposed to address food insecurity launched today by the G20 agriculture ministers has been criticised by campaigners, who say it fails to fully address the root causes of volatile food prices, including financial speculation, which is driving up prices.

Anti-poverty group the World Development Movement said that opposition from countries including the UK had led to the watering down of proposals that could have seen countries commit to setting limits on speculators’ share of the market.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said:

Speculative frenzy is hurting consumers warns charity

14 June 2011

The World Development Movement has warned that a new ‘summer of speculation’ is fuelling record food prices, as new figures show that financial betting on maize prices has contributed to a doubling in the cost of corn over the past year.

Bailed-out bank RBS to finance Madagascar tar sands – campaigners demand bank pull-out

23 May 2011

A human rights campaigner from Madagascar is in the UK this week to demand that the Royal Bank of Scotland withdraw its financing of companies mining tar sands in her country.

Barclays AGM: Protests over bank's role in food crisis

27 April 2011

Following a month of protests at over 22 local Barclays’ branches around the country [1], campaigners from the World Development Movement [2] protested at the Barclays AGM this morning over the banks leading role in food speculation. The campaigners - dressed as Barclays eagles, bankers and selling food at hugely inflated prices - say speculation is fuelling the price of staple foods, and having a disastrous effect on the lives of millions of the poorest people across the world.

First Nations protest tar sands investment at Royal Bank of Scotland AGM

19 April 2011

Representatives from some of Canada’s First Nations are today preparing to demand in person that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stops financing the controversial tar sands industry in Alberta, Canada, at the bank’s AGM today.

New research shows that, since public bail-out in 2008, RBS has raised more than £5.6 billion for companies involved in controversial Canadian tar sands projects, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months.

Flippin' bankers push up pancake prices

8 March 2011

Press release, 07.03.2011

People making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday will face higher prices of key ingredients, such as flour, milk and sugar, as prices have sky rocketed to a new record high on the global markets.

Government aid spending plans criticised by World Development Movement

28 February 2011

The Department for International Development will tomorrow announce changes to the way aid money is spent. Aid for ‘fragile’ states will be a priority, as will maximum value for money and the UK's national interests. It will also cut aid to UN agencies that support agricultural development in favour of emergency relief programmes. The news has been met with criticism from anti-poverty campaigners, the World Development Movement who criticised the government for 'fighting terrorism, not poverty, with the aid budget'.

Record food prices worsened by banking speculation

7 January 2011

Current soaring food prices are being worsened by record levels of financial speculation, according to a leading UK anti-poverty group. Latest figures from the World Development Movement reveal that hedge funds, investment bankers and pension funds have poured over $200bn into food markets since the financial crisis, betting on the rising price of food.